Films with: Tseten, Kesang

Desert eats us

"In recent years, fear of being caught in the crossfire between state security forces and Maoist insurgents and a failing economy propelled Nepalis to sell themselves as cheap labour in the Gulf. Their earnings sustain one out of every three households and remittances prop up the country, but these come at a high cost. The film provides a rare glimpse of the migrant experience in Qatar, where they outnumber natives by 3 to 1. Their struggle to endure long working hours in stultifying heat, burdened by loans and high expectations of home, and the upheaval and fractures of emotional life is overwhelming, unhinging the compass of their lives"--Shunyata WWW site.

DVD 10452

In search of the riyal

"Nepal has rapidly become a pipeline of cheap labour for the Gulf in the last two decades. Migration has emptied Nepal's villages of its young men, its farm fields tended by the elderly and women or left fallow. This film is about young men who set out to escape their family woes and grinding poverty, albeit at a high cost, to earn wages of US $5 to 7 a day in the alien and stultifying conditions of the Qatari desert. Theirs is often a true test of resilience and luck. The film shows a glimpse of gritty migrant conditions, rarely permitted to be filmed by the Gulf states, with its well-known sensitivity to outside criticism of its labour policies and practices. The stories of disillusionment and, occasional, transformation, capture the essence of the Nepali migrant experience, and the enormity of his journey"--Shunyata WWW site.

DVD 10451

Saving Dolma

"The film looking at women migrant workers follows the thread of Dolma, sentenced to death for killing a Filipino co-domestic in Kuwait, presenting the multiple responses to this event, the upheaval and fractures of the family, the women's advocacy group, Nepali society and officialdom. It presents a rare glimpse of the women's situation in the Gulf States extremely sensitive to outside scrutiny of their treatment of foreign workers. It exposes the fundamentally vulnerable condition of ill-educated and ill-prepared women from a poor country making this enormous journey"--Shunyata WWW site.

DVD 10450

Who will be a gurkha

Sam Manekshaw, former chief of staff of the Indian Army, once quipped: "If a man says he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying or is a Gurkha." The prestigious, centuries-old Nepali mercenary unit features prominently in the imaginations of young Nepali boys, but the inner workings of the Gurkha tradition and its trials remain obscure in America. This film depicts the fiercely competitive training and recruitment of new cadets with lucidity and poetry. At the British Gurkha Camp in Pokhara, the struggle sets the stage for introspection, hot tempers, caste prejudices, and occasionally, rambunctious singing.

DVD 10454